


Closer to Fine

by Ericine



Series: Ubi Stellae et Amor [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute Kids, F/F, F/M, Femslash, Kissing, Mutually Unrequited, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Open Marriage, Pining, Pregnancy, Temporarily Unrequited Love, open to the idea of polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 19:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ericine/pseuds/Ericine
Summary: They're both fine. Totally fine. Nothing will ever happen between them, but that doesn't stop them from wondering.Or, five times Philippa and Afsaneh almost hooked up while they were married, and one time they did...after they were divorced.





	Closer to Fine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oparu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/gifts), [R_S_B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_S_B/gifts), [phantomunmasked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomunmasked/gifts).



> Idea sprung from [R_S_B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_S_B/pseuds/R_S_B). She also named Afsaneh, her husband Gaspard, Afrand, and Setareh. Thanks to [Oparu](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu) and [phantomunmasked](http://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomunmasked/pseuds/phantomunmasked) for listening to me talk.
> 
> Nikos, Pippa's hubby/ex-hubby, comes from the _Desperate Hours_ novel.
> 
> Iman, Pippa's bff, is created by me!
> 
> I guess it kind of references my other story _meteoric_ , but I think you can read this without reading that and be fine.

**I. Party**

It’s not that Afsaneh has been avoiding Pippa at this post-seminar party. That’s ridiculous. She still considers her one of her closest friends. Also, the number of people in Starfleet who were interested in post-lingual methods of communication in higher Starfleet education are slim. It’s not like she’s been able to avoid knowing exactly what’s going on in the lives of everyone in this room.

But things have been weird lately since they’ve both gotten married, and it’s the kind of weird she’s felt even though they spend around the same amount of time around each other that they did since they both graduated the Academy: not much.

Still, she can’t help looking over at her too much. They’re wearing the same uniform, but there’s something about Pippa that’s always sparkled from a distance. The woman fills rooms with light.

It’s not the best path of thought to venture down, though, so she turns her attention to the next item on her list: cheering along with the rest of the room as someone produces what Starfleet seminars are semi-famous for: barely legal booze.

Maybe it is her fault, then, she thinks, as she and Pippa stumble toward the exit together, leaning on each other. The room is almost empty - she’s not sure how much time has passed, but she remembers feeling very competitive, despite knowing that she hasn’t seen anyone outdrink Philippa Georgiou (the name feels weird on her) who wasn’t in her own family. She also remembers it occurring to her that maybe she’s had more practice than she thinks, drinking with Pippa all these years, on and off.

Pippa’s pretty gone too, not as far as Afsaneh is, of course, but she’s far from sober on the Romulan concoction. From time to time, Afsaneh’s attention has been brought to someone introducing measures to ban the stuff. 

“Remember Chris’ party third year at the Academy?” Pippa asks. She sounds a little winded. Afsaneh tries to take some of her weight off of her and almost falls down.

“Worse than that?”

She feels some motion that can either be Pippa nodding or shaking her head. Afsaneh’s better on the former. “You’re doing better than the other people, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Tha’ good.”

“You didn’t even the see the guys passed out by the wall. One sec.” There’s a shift, and that’s when Afsaneh realizes that she’s moving her aside for a bio scan - Pippa’s bio scan.

This is Pippa’s room.

“Wait--” Afsaneh begins, confused, and the door springs open.

“I sprained my ankle,” Pippa explains. “I’m sorry. I can take you back in a minute.”

“No, that’s fine. I can take myself back.”

Pippa’s face swims into focus, and that’s a good sign, but it also means that Afsaneh can make out the incredulousness on her face.

“Fine, I’ll come in.”

Afsaneh steps inside and realizes that what she’s really been working toward this entire time is the opportunity to  _ lie down _ . She flops on Pippa’s couch, and Pippa takes the floor under it. “I have a...thing,” she says, sounding confused. She sits down and waves the object around with both hands. “It’s the thing that fixes your sprain. I’ll just be a second.”

Afsaneh lets her eyes fall shut, and then she opens them when she feels Pippa tapping at her feet. 

“Hey, do you just want to stay here? I’ll just pull one of the sheets over and--”

Afsaneh waves her off and sits up with a little difficulty. “No, I need to go home. I’m not a wayward student anymore.”

Pippa chuckles. “You’re allowed to be wayward sometimes. Better do it here than anywhere else.”

“How’s your ankle?”

“I’m not a student anymore. Maybe I shouldn’t be wearing such ridiculous shoes.”

“They’re heeled boots. Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking liquor we clearly weren’t made to digest.”

“Ah, maybe that’s it,” says Pippa, pulling her hair out of its updo and leaning back against the couch cushions. She’s unzipped her uniform, and Afsaneh follows the line of her jaw, down to her collarbones, down to the curve of her undershirt.

Afsaneh swallows. “How’s your ankle?”

“I’m not sure I used it right, actually. I think that conference day is tomorrow.”

“There’s another day!” groans Afsaneh. She flops back onto the couch. “Well, elevate it, at least.”

“That involves changing direction as well as moving on the z-axis,” says Pippa.

“What?”

“I’m doing it.” With some difficulty, she manages to swivel herself around (she hits the coffee table and winces, and Afsaneh wonders why Starfleet standard room always have  _ coffee tables  _ in them of all things), but both her legs flop onto the couch by Afsaneh’s feet.

When Afsaneh looks over, she realizes that Pippa’s somehow deemed it necessary to take her jacket all the way off, and she’s just lying there in her tank top, collarbones bare, her hair spilling out nebula-like around her.

“Stop that,” Pippa tells her, and Afsaneh returns her eyes to the ceiling, ashamed.

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s more for my sake than yours,” says Pippa. “Don’t fall asleep. I want to take you back.”

_ Oh.  _ She thought she was falling asleep.

Afsaneh’s already forgotten she doesn’t live here. Is she that drunk? “You said not to fall asleep.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” laughs Pippa. She stretches her arms out, the way Afsaneh used to do in the snow when she was a child.

“This reminds me of when we met,” Afsaneh finds herself saying. A perfectly normal thing to say. Also, it’s a little warm in here. Afsaneh begins to shrug out of her own jacket, eyes closed, arching to peel it off while lying down.

“We met at orientation like everyone else,” Pippa says, after a time. “No one was drinking there. Unless you’re talking about the library.”

Afsaneh thinks. “No, I’m thinking of the party, the one you invited me to with Kat when Gabe was out of town.”

“We’d met so many times before that,” says Pippa, sounding a little confused. “I just-- _ oh. _ ”

A realization? That didn’t sound like anything she needed to be having a realization over. “What?”

“That’s the first time you remembered me.”

“No, it wasn’t like that--it was--” She trails off. Of course she remembered Pippa. She was in almost all of her classes. She saw her around campus all the time.

“Remembered me,” says Pippa, steady, “as you do now. You knew me, but that was the point where I became me, the way you think of me.”

For a moment, the room stops spinning. Things come into clarity as Afsaneh focuses on Pippa’s face. There isn’t a doubt in her mind that she’s still drunk, that she probably will be for the next few hours, but understanding is understanding. “Yeah,” says Afsaneh, a little surprised at how much that resonates with her. “I guess I do.”

She tries not to think too much about that night. It was also a night of too much drinking but also a lot of talking under the stars. Pippa had been good at that, talking to people under the stars. She probably still is.

Did she do that with her other lovers, fall asleep under the stars? Pippa always set her bed up on the ship to where it would be right under the window outside so that she could watch them traverse the skies, but would they let her fall asleep outside under them when she was with them on planet? Would they sleep out there with her?

“Afsaneh?” Pippa says. She’s sat up, turned Afsaneh’s face toward her with one hand. “Just give me regular declarations of ‘I’m okay’, yes? Just so I know?”

God, she’s beautiful. Something inside her clenches, but Pippa’s face is so open and concerned and  _ effortless _ \- Afsaneh can’t bring herself to move in her radiance. “Okay,” she whispers. She feels like her mouth barely moves.

Pippa’s still down on the floor, but she’s close enough to where Afsaneh can see that she’s put something different on her eyelashes tonight, something shimmery - not quite regulation but something that would never be caught, especially at a seminar like this one. Rose lips that match her the flush in her cheeks and chest from the drink.

She knows now that Pippa’s watching her watch her, but then again, Pippa’s doing staring of her own, and Afsaneh doesn’t know what to do, so she looks down to where their hands have found each other, clasped. Pippa wears her ring on her right hand, not her left, so when they intertwine their fingers, the rings rest right against each other.

Pippa’s the first to let go.

She lies back down on the floor, and Afsaneh snaps back into place, staring up at the ceiling. Should she apologize? Had she done something worth apologizing for, or would acknowledging - whatever this was - make it worse?

“You look good, Pippa,” she says instead, and her voice rasps a little in her throat. From the alcohol, surely. That ale is nasty stuff.

“You too,” comes the reply, and Afsaneh closes her eyes, though it doesn’t keep out that voice, how Pippa leans into others’ happiness sometimes when she’s not fully there herself; Afsaneh knows she means every word. “You should keep with the dark violet lipstick, the dark violet everything. It suits you.”

“It’s going to be okay,” says Afsaneh, after a time. She doesn’t know if she’s talking to Pippa or herself, but the couch is getting too comfortable, and she’s pretty sure she can make all of this worse right now by falling asleep, but the idea of sitting herself up again is an excruciating idea.

“You know, for me, it was before that,” says Pippa sleepily, and Afsaneh does feel bad that she’s falling asleep on the floor, but she also feels useless on this (very comfortable) couch.

“Hm?” asks Afsaneh distantly.

“Remembering you. I remembered you way before that.”

But then they’re asleep.

=======

Afsaneh wakes up to a thudding headache and a notification on her PADD from Gabriel Lorca. She’s in the middle of calling him back when she realizes that she’s in her own room and in her sleeping clothes.

“Gabe?” she asks, noticing that the last message she’d sent him was several hours before. When had she left the party? When had she called him?

It’s hard to tell what time it is on a ship’s internal clock, but Afsaneh’s best bet is that he’s somewhere around evening time. Gabe grimaces when he sees her. “Jesus, Afsaneh, do something about your hangover. You’re making  _ me _ hungover.”

Afsaneh has to blink before what he says completely sinks in, but she’s still able to hit him with one of her characteristic looks of disdain. “Then make this short. Did I call you last night?”

Gabe chuckles. “Yes.”

“What did I say?”

“The usual drunk shit. ‘Did you know that you’re my favorite asshole?’ That kind of thing. Nice job on getting back to your room, by the way.”

“Where--”

“Pippa’s,” says Gabe. “She was also a bit of a mess. It was like you guys passed out, woke up, and had a second wave of drunkenness.” He hits her with a raised eyebrow. “Romulan ale? At your ages? And you didn’t invite me?”

Afsaneh pushes her hair out of the way and feels the hard metal of her wedding ring against her cheek. “And how is Pippa, ray of sunshine that she is?” she asks, pushing away her instinct to be light with the question and instead trying for her usual wryness.

Gabe shrugs. “You have her to thank. She dragged your drunk ass home on that hurt foot of hers.”

Afsaneh’s eyes widen. “She made good on her promise.”

“And that surprises you?” laughs Gabe. “You’re more hungover than I thought, though I guess you get credit for sitting up with the shit you pulled. Which is legendary, by the way. All the junior staff is talking about it on this ship.”

“You mean you and your peers. You’re junior staff, Gabe.”

“Not for long.” 

Afsaneh rolls her eyes. “I need to report for breakfast. There’s a whole other day of conference.” Her head pounds. She knows someone’s going to be passing around unsanctioned hangover cures at breakfast, which is one of the only reasons she’s thinking of going.”

“Okay. And Sunny?”

She  _ hates _ that nickname. “What?”

“You’re hot when you’re drunk.”

“There is  _ virtually  _ no circumstance under which you telling me that is relevant or appropriate.”

“I’m just saying that you should know your own strength.”

“What?”

“Bye, Sunny.”

Afsaneh bristles at the nickname and rolls her eyes (but not too much, because that just makes the headache worse).

======

Pippa waves at her brightly at breakfast and ushers her over, and it’s like nothing happened last night - including Pippa’s hangover, which seems nonexistent.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she declares, when Afsaneh brings it up (Afsaneh is feeling much better as well, after being passed a hypospray by Commander Zh'chiaqas and being told not to ask too many questions). “I’m very hungover. And you?”

She’s doing that thing with her face where she manages to portray a whole range of possible emotions; Pippa could be asking about how Afsaneh’s hangover’s going, or she could be asking about how Afsaneh feels about drunken living room conversations last night.

Almost a year into being married, Afsaneh figures it’s good to get this kind of thing out of the way between the two of them. It’s closure. It’s good. Pippa had come to her wedding, and she’d been happy about it.

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

* * *

**II. Wedding**

Afsaneh finishes her champagne and tries not to think too much about timing. She and Gaspard had fought this morning, and it’s not normally something that she’d be so worried about - they bicker all the time, had even before they were married. But he’s been making points that weigh heavily on her, and the celebration she’s attending isn’t helping.

She shouldn’t be at this wedding, but she’d been at the first wedding, and now that couple was marrying another individual, so it seemed unfair to favor a spouse over another. She just wishes the celebrant wasn’t Pippa’s best friend and that Pippa wasn’t the whole reason that she’d been at the first wedding.

Still, the friend, Iman, is one of the best people Afsaneh’s ever met, but then that might be because Philippa Lee has some of the best taste in people that Afsaneh’s ever seen.

“Afsaneh!” Iman appears, her spouses in tow. Afsaneh recognizes zir Aenar partner Lheatal from the first wedding. The other individual is a Tellarite, a bit shorter than Afsaneh, with a sweet face, long hair, and a deep, blue-olive complexion.

“Xuss,” he says, folding his hands over his chest in greeting.

Afsaneh follows suit, a small smile on her face. “It’s lovely to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” And she has. Pippa recorded a video message for her explaining everything about how Iman and Lheatal met Xuss, and it had been very thorough but also long, and Afsaneh sat there wondering how the woman could be so animated speaking to an inanimate object.

Still, she’s polite and allows Xuss to tell her the story all over again, with both partners tossing in the occasional detail.

A hug from Iman later, the newlyweds are moving on. It’a a nice ceremony, held on Andor rather than on Earth like the first ceremony. Afsaneh isn’t wearing her uniform to this wedding like she didn’t to the first one, at Iman’s request. Instead, she’s dressed for the chill in a long-sleeved dress she hastily had her sister Shahnaz upload to her replicator. It’s nice, a deep and rich emerald green, trimmed with gold and with a long skirt that flares. It makes her feel a little better about this weird situation. So many faces are the same, just older. But this dress is a good dress (and very flattering, as Shahnaz tells her; apparently Afsaneh doesn’t do a good enough job showing off her “physical assets”).

It also works a little bit like armor. Afsaneh’s stayed for the ceremony, had some food, and spoken to enough guests to where she doesn’t have to stay here much longer. She’s tired. She has work to do. She has to get back to the station tomorrow. There are plenty of reasons to leave.

Except there’s also one reason to stay, and that reason is floating after her, dressed in lace long-sleeved dress that seems to blend right into her skin. It’s designed to make people stare, to see if the lace was possibly the only barrier between their eyes and her skin. Afsaneh’s noticed people trying to to stare all night. She knows the feeling.

“Afsaneh.” Pippa sweeps in beside her and touches her arm. “Leaving so soon?” Afsaneh just nods. “You haven’t even danced yet.”

There’s a hidden  _ you’ve barely said two words to me _ in there, but she’d never bring it up. “I’ve got some stuff on my mind.”

Pippa smiles, gracious. “Dancing is good for stuff.”

Her smile is infectious. Afsaneh can’t help it. “It is.”

It’s cold on Andor, and this facility is heated for its several non-Andorian guests, but the chill comes in, even though they’re dressed for it. She lets Pippa lead her to the floor, and if Pippa’s leaning into her a little more than usual, Afsaneh figures it’s just from the cold. Pippa’s always been a little bad with cold, even after their training at the Academy. Iman’s first wedding had been on sunkissed Langkawi, with just enough of a breeze to keep things bearable.

“They’re thinking of making me first officer,” Pippa says, as they sway to the music. It’s a slow song, good for conversation if you’re just friends.

“To whom?” Afsaneh asks, impressed. It’s early, but they’d always known that this was going to happen to her.

“I’m not sure,” shrugs Pippa. “I’m trying not to think too much about it, take each day as it comes. How’s the station assignment?”

“Perhaps permanent,” says Afsaneh. “I’m, uh…” What was it about Pippa that always made her want to tell her everything? “Gaspard’s thinking it’s time to start a family. It’s hard to make that work, the way things are on a ship, I guess. And then he’s not crazy about space in general…”

She realizes that Pippa’s slowly been transitioning this dance to where Afsaneh’s leading. It warms her better than maybe anything else would on Andor. “And what do you think?”

Afsaneh smiles helplessly. “I don’t know.”

“Good place to start, what you want,” Pippa remarks. They’re silent a little more, and Afsaneh enjoys this. They’ve danced together so many times, and it’s muscle memory, comfort.

Then, she sees nothing. The music stops short.

There are the normal cries of surprise that occur when a power outage occurs. She and Pippa are silent, though. They know the best thing to do is not to panic.

“What do you think?”

“Probably the musicians. I saw them bringing in an amp that looked like it was cobbled together in some shuttle bay.”

“Should we bother trying to find a source of light?”

She feels Pippa’s shoulders shrug. “Might kill the mood for the guests and their objects of affection.”

Afsaneh giggles. They stand there, still wrapped in each other, and Afsaneh swallows hard. It would be so easy from here to just lean in, and…

“Miss you,” Pippa says, in a tone that could mean anything.

The lights turn back on. Couples around the floor are kissing, caught mid-route to the exits. Some look embarrassed because they panicked.

Pippa and Afsaneh look the same, if flushed.

“You’re turning in now?” Pippa asks, a small smile. “Do you feel better?”

“I’m fine,” Afsaneh nods, then leans in and kisses Pippa on the cheek. “Miss you too.”

* * *

**III. Unspoken**

She’d found out because she works on a damn space station, one of the biggest and busiest Federation posts. Word gets around, so she’d heard the news at least a dozen times before Kat had mentioned it in passing to her. Like a footnote.

“Like a goddamn dismissal, Pippa,” she snaps now. Kat had told Pippa, and, in the way that she always manages to make things work, had found an excuse to have business on her station, and when she showed up at her office, Afsaneh had told her to shut the door. “What the hell is that? You and I don’t have secrets, and the fact that Kat still  _ waited  _ to tell me is something else altogether.”

Pippa had stayed standing. She knew what was going to happen. “Tell you,” she says now, voice even, with the smallest of pauses, “that we are dating.”

Why had she done that? It’s worse when she says it out loud. “Now, it’s so easy for you to tell me. So why didn’t you do it before?”

“I  _ do  _ tell you about who I’m dating,” Pippa says, in that same maddeningly even tone. “I know you know Kat better than most of them, but--”

“But what?”

“We were on the same ship. It just happened. We would have gotten the chance to tell you sooner or later.”

“Bull.” She doesn’t know why she’s pushing so hard, for Pippa to ask this question, because it’s something she shouldn’t answer. And yet--

Pippa sighs and closes her eyes, somehow the picture of peace in the middle of Afsaneh’s turmoil. It’s nice, sometimes. Today, it just pisses her off. “Fine. Why? Why does this feel like such a betrayal to you?”

“Because you and I--”

A lot of things happen in that next moment. Pippa’s eyes turn from surprise to shock to  _ fear _ to  _ hard _ , and she lunges forward and has her hand over Afsaneh’s mouth before Afsaneh can say anything. “ _ Don’t _ ,” she says, stone-voiced.

Afsaneh is very, stupidly aware of the proximity of her lips to Pippa’s skin, even if it just is her hand.

“Don’t,” whispers Pippa again, and there’s  _ pleading _ in her eyes.

Afsaneh regrets everything immediately. When she pulls away (her lips brush Pippa’s hand, and she fights not to close her eyes), Pippa pulls her  _ in _ , and their cheeks are touching, Pippa holding onto her head, her mouth by her ear. Afsaneh swallows. “I’m sorry,” she says. She wants to reach out and hug her, but she thinks maybe that’s too much.

“It’s not  _ fair _ ,” whispers Pippa. And Afsaneh doesn’t know if she means that about Afsaneh or their situation. She leans into Afsaneh’s cheek, and Afsaneh leans back. “If we’d-- _ if it had been _ \--”

It costs her a lot to be saying this - this and what she said before, Afsaneh realizes. She doesn’t know how much; she just knows that she needs Pippa to stop before she pays.

“Shh,” murmurs Afsaneh. “Shh, it’s fine.”

Pippa stops, and Afsaneh’s still looking at the floor when Pippa turns around and walks out.

* * *

**IV. Kick**

Pippa spends about two consecutive weeks in her and her husband’s house on Earth every year, but he spends plenty of the year contracted to play in the small lounge on the ship where she’s stationed. Still, Pippa wracks up her shore leave time, so they’re putting that to good use on a nice timeshare they’ve acquired on Risa.

The term “timeshare” of course is very flexible, and they’ve been able to make this house up to look a lot like Nikos’ childhood home in Mykonos. It’s a great place to take some shore leave, or to have somewhat of a babymoon, which is happening for Afsaneh now, even though it’s still relatively early in her pregnancy. Gaspard had bowed out (he really can’t do space travel), but she’d been ready to crawl out of her skin. Pippa and Nikos’ invitation had come right around then, and neither of them are big on appearances, which means Afsaneh can hang out barefoot in long, floaty dresses by the pool for hours, and no one thinks twice about it. She’s busy on her station. It’s hard to relax and a little bit hard to let other people see her relax.

When she starts complaining about her hair, Pippa pulls up the lounge chair beside her and braids her hair back without question, skillfully weaving all of it out of her face.

Afsaneh groans. “My feet are swollen. I’m lying down. Why do they still feel swollen?”

“Want to swim?”

“I could. I’m a whale. I’d float.”

She stays lying down. Pippa looks down at her sympathetically.

“I’m fine, honestly. I feel good, even. It’s just my whale feet.”

“A whale is an... _ oddly specific _ example, especially because it does not have feet,” chuckles Pippa. Afsaneh’s always been a little bit adorably classic. There’s a piece of hair sticking out. Pippa undoes the braid to the point that she can put back the hair.

“I don’t care. You know, I always wanted at least two kids. My siblings and I got so much out of growing up together, but if I have to do this again…”

Pippa shrugs. “I was an only child. I turned out fine.”

Afsaneh rolls over on her side and looks up at her. “You did.”

“I’m glad you think so.” She finishes the hair and secures it. “Do you want to take a nap like you did yesterday, or are you feeling kind of hungry?” But Afsaneh’s hand has flown to the swell of her stomach. “What?”

Afsaneh grabs her hand (strange; she doesn’t normally like being touched) and places it on her stomach. “There, did you feel that?”

Pippa shakes her head, confused, and then -  _ there _ , the smallest of flutters. “Kick?”

Afsaneh nods, eyes full of wonder. “Yeah. Ze hasn’t done that yet.”

For a moment, everything stills, even the slow, tranquil lap of the water against the sides of the pool. It’s like the two of them and this baby are the only things that exist. It’s almost easy to pretend that’s the way it is.

Just for a moment.

They both miss Nikos watching them through the doorway.

=======

Afsaneh and Pippa stay awake for hours catching up; it’s been a few months since they saw each other, but there’s always so much to tell - they both get a little invested in their crew, and then of course there’s the Starfleet gossip to catch up on, Federation policy to argue.

It’s late when Pippa crawls into bed, but Nikos is awake enough to roll into her and hold her. “Hey,” he says, struggling to wake up a little.

She’d normally snuggle back into him, just tell him to go back to sleep, but she has something to tell him. She places her hand on his cheek.

“Cold hand,” he says, taking it between both of his hands, warm. “What is it?”

He keeps his hair long, not as long as hers, but somewhere around there. She pushes his hair away from his face with her other hand, her ring hand. “Just Afsaneh. We had kind of a moment earlier. Baby kicked.”

He closes his eyes, just for a moment; he’s too chill to wake all the way up. “I saw.”

“You did?” It’s not like he doesn’t know about the two of them and their weird history; they tell each other everything. That’s part of why this works so well.

“I figured you could use a moment. Must be weird for her to experience that alone. He really doesn’t like space does he?”

“Gaspard?” Pippa shakes her head. “She’s fine out here. It’s just--”

“If you didn’t have the jobs you did, it would have been her,” Nikos says. There’s not an ounce of judgment in it, just the kind of understanding that Pippa loves. She wants to wrap herself up in it.

Her hand’s warm now. He kisses it and lets it go, looping one arm over her side.

“You want to go sleep with her?”

Pippa rolls her eyes. “You know he wouldn’t like that.” It’s true. It’s just another thing she and Nikos have in common - that spark of an attraction to Afsaneh. It’s always been there, even when he met her.

“Okay, just asking. Are you okay?”

Pippa kisses him. “Of course.”

=======

Still, Pippa wakes up in the morning hearing something that sounds a little bit like Afsaneh’s voice, so she rolls over to spoon Nikos, which has the added benefit of also waking him up.

He shifts into her arms. “Is this you asking me for coffee?”

“Not really, but I don’t mind taking some if you’re offering,” Pippa giggles. “Can you make us some?”

“It’s a replicator.”

“I know, but I like when you replicate it better.”

It’s his turn to laugh, and again, there he is, trying to wake himself up. “Sure.”

“Thanks. And um, Nikos?”

“Yes?”

“Could you bring Afsaneh’s coffee too? Just all of it, to her room?”

Nikos quiets a little. “You hear it too?” It’s there in the distance, her unmistakable voice in short bursts of sound - like someone either laughing or crying. Pippa nods. “Go to her.”

========

This particular guest room is naturally blocked from sunlight until nearly midday, so it’s almost like it’s still the middle of the night when Pippa walks in, turns the lights up 10 percent, and sees the blanket huddle that is Afsaneh shaking.

“You shouldn’t have to see me like this,” Afsaneh says, between sobs. She doesn’t turn around.

“I have, and I will,” says Pippa simply, and she slides onto the bed, perching over Afsaneh’s side. “What’s wrong?”

“I just...feel...and he’s not here,” Afsaneh struggles out. Then she shifts, pulls her hands over her face, pulls her voice away from crying. “I don’t want this - you, having to see me like this. The both of you...where is he?”

Pippa catches Afsaneh’s shoulder between her fingers. “He’s bringing us breakfast.”

“He doesn’t have to,” Afsaneh replies, struggling to keep her voice from breaking.

“Do you hurt?” Afsaneh shakes her head. “It just feels strange, waking up alone?”

Afsaneh sighs and rolls onto her back, her face covered by one of her forearms. Pippa draws her arm back. “I fucking hate feeling this way.”

Pippa knows she’s breaking the tenuous unspoken code they operate under now when they’re together, but its criteria for what to do when your friend-who-is-also-your-ex is hormonal and lonely is a little obscure. When she eases herself around Afsaneh’s side and drapes an arm over her side, Afsaneh doesn’t protest, just sighs like she’s been holding her breath and takes Pippa’s hand. “You feel however you want.”

Afsaneh doesn’t usually like people touching her stomach, which isn’t something people tend to do anymore without asking (more of an older generation thing), but Pippa still hesitates when she feels Afsaneh moving her hand the small swell of her abdomen, like it might be a mistake. It’s comfortable. They stay like that until Pippa hears Nikos footsteps and the soft sound of a tray being set down on one of the room’s tables. “Did she help you out, Afsaneh?” he asks.

Pippa’s head is buried somewhere in Afsaneh’s shoulder, but she would know her friend’s classic dry tone anywhere. She can’t help but smile; she hasn’t heard it in a while. “Oh yes, we’re reliving our childhoods as we speak.” Another pause. “Oh, just get in bed with the pregnant lady. You know you want to.”

Pippa giggles. She feels the bed shift, the familiar weight of Nikos settle in behind her, his mouth just brush the back of her neck in greeting and understanding.

“Not her side, my side. The pregnant lady side.”

Nikos laughs, and everyone shifts over to allow for him to have some room. “She helped you find your mojo, at least,” he remarks. Pippa wonders if he’s thinking about the same thing she is. Is Gaspard usually around when she feels like this? Does he hold her?

She’ll ask these questions to Nikos later when they’re back together in bed, but what about Afsaneh? She can take care of herself, but what does she do when she’s lonely in space?

“I’m fine, I promise. Just needy,” Afsaneh says to no one in particular. Maybe it’s just for herself. “It’ll pass.”

Eventually, they’re all too hungry and have to get out of bed, but it’s something that Pippa continues to think about from time to time, for years.

* * *

**V. Possibility**

“And they all lived…” Pippa trails off. The “ever after” part always seemed presumptuous to her. “And they all live. They all live happily.”

She looks over. Her ending doesn’t really matter either way; Afrand is asleep. She smiles down at him, then slips out of the room. She’s about to hand the bedtime story PADD back to Afsaneh when she sees her looking harried on the couch, holding a fussy Setareh in her arms.

A few hours ago, Setareh had been feverish. That’s gone now, but Afsaneh’s little one doesn’t like hyposprays. It’s a matter of letting herself tire herself out enough to sleep, now, but that takes a while. Afsaneh’s little girl has a lot of energy. Even as a child, she keeps it in reserves, like her mother.

Pippa sets the PADD on a side table instead; she’ll worry about it later.

“How’s it going?” she asks quietly. She holds out her arms, and Afsaneh shakes her head before relenting.

Setareh clings to Pippa, still crying. Pippa bounces her a little. She’s not a baby anymore. She remembers her so much lighter, but she’s still upset enough to not want to use the few words she can.

Afsaneh leans over the side of the couch. “I’m sure this has been a great visit for you, nannying your friend’s kids. It’s not much of a vacation, is it?”

Setareh’s beginning to quiet now, her sobs getting farther and farther apart. She wraps her little arms around Pippa’s shoulders and buries her face in her neck. “I love my nanny, and I love your little ones.”

Afsaneh closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Afrand?”

“Asleep before the end of the story. I’ll just…” She turns to the kids’ room, and Afsaneh makes a sound of protest.

“Just put her in my room. She sleeps better there sometimes.”

Pippa is about to put her on Gaspard’s side of the bed when Setareh finds another reserve of energy and begins to cry a little bit more again. Pippa sighs. “I’m not going to leave you, okay?” she tells Setareh. She eases both of them onto the bed and tries to shift so that Setareh’s at least partially resting on the bed. Maybe that’ll help her get to sleep faster. It’s got to be tiring, crying for so long. “Maybe when you’re older, hyposprays won’t feel as strange anymore, hm? It’ll just be like washing your hands or making food in the replicator.”

It’s not until Afsaneh’s tired laughter jolts her back into reality that she realizes that Setareh has nodded off and that she’s doing it too.

“I wondered what was taking you so long,” says Afsaneh, who has already changed for bed. Pippa’s staying in the guest room. She could slide Setareh off her and then go into the guest room.

“Sorry.”

“Look at her,” says Afsaneh. And Pippa does. She’s a little flushed but nothing to be worried about. Her breathing is deep and even, and she’s only a little warm in Pippa’s arms. “She hasn’t slept like this in days. Just stay in here. She’ll roll off you eventually. She moves a lot in the night.”

“You’re sure?”

Afsaneh stares at her. “If she wakes up, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to take it. You stay.” She sinks onto the bed and lies down, staring up at the ceiling. “She  _ would _ get sick during one of Gaspard’s distribution meetings.”

“He’ll be back soon.”

“He’s not around enough,” Afsaneh sighs, and Pippa can’t tell if that’s the fatigue talking or not, so she doesn’t push. “Are you comfortable?” Pippa nods, and she gets the lights.

“I’m glad I could help.” And honestly, she is. The truth is that spending time with Afsaneh and her kids is one of Pippa’s favorite ways to spend her spare time. She doesn’t say it much, though, because she can’t think of a way to say it to where it wouldn’t sound weird - or pick at an old wound.

But Afsaneh’s really that tired, maybe, because in the dark, in the silence, she speaks.

“Sometimes it’s better when you’re here, Pippa.”

=======

Pippa awakes, and it’s like no time has passed at all. She knows she’s rested, so it was a good sleep, but she remembers everything.

Also, Afsaneh’s staring at her across the bed, and she can feel her eyes on her, even as hers are still closed. So, she opens them, and true to Afsaneh’s word, Setareh has taken her space in the middle of the bed, sprawled out. In the night, she and Afsaneh have taken the respective edges of the bed

“She slept through the night,” Pippa yawns, propping herself up carefully on her elbow. Their movement hasn’t woken Setareh during the night, but there’s nothing saying that it won’t happen now. She hasn’t slept in pajamas like Afsaneh has, but she’s wearing her house clothes - an old tank top and pants. The top slides down, and she adjusts it into place.

“She didn’t, actually,” Afsaneh laughs. “She woke up a couple times. Went down easy enough, but you were out.”

Pippa blushes. “Sorry.” She’s used to pulling double shifts on a ship, but kids are another thing altogether.

“Maybe we’re even. I shouldn’t have said that to you, last night.”

“You didn’t mean anything by it.” And she didn’t, she knows, because Pippa’s done the same thing too. They’re never completely out of each other’s orbits, but they’re never in danger of colliding, not now. That’s why these incidents, these slides, are alright. It’s more acknowledgement than a slip. Ironically, they love each other too much to fall. “And I think that we both know that if things had turned out differently, you wouldn’t have this.” She nods a little at Setareh, sleeping peacefully between them.

Afsaneh stretches her hand up and between them; their hands meet on the pillows above Setareh’s head. “They’re both so perfect.”

Pippa squeezes Afsaneh’s hand. “See? It’s fine. It’s not so bad at all.”

And it’s not. It’s really not.

* * *

**\+ Aligned**

 

They’re swinging by a starbase to tackle no shortage of business - Pippa’s leading the evening shifts this week, which means that she gets all morning to work on her mission notes, which have been piling up. She isn’t even able to get off the ship to help out with the restocking or the routine maintenance. Most of the senior staff is away at a conference, and they’re in a hurry, because they also have to ferry some of the conference attendees to the site. There just aren’t enough transport shuttles; the station’s growing, which means the Federation is having a little trouble building it up fast enough.

She powers through the daytime and then some, and ends up with one more shift of catch-up work left to do when she decides to take her first break in days. It’s a short one, just to view a nearby nebula she’s fortunate enough to see with her naked eye.

She doesn’t like to think about endings too much these days, just beginnings.

This crawlspace on the ship is a bit uncomfortable. One has to sit down cross-legged to get anything out of the space, one of the vestigial parts of the design left over from nostalgic ship constructors who believed that ships still needed room for secrets and for wonder.

Pippa makes a point of finding and remembering where such places are on each class of ship. She doesn’t share that information with so many people, but she’s not alone when she crawls up into the space in front of the window today.

“Commander Georgiou,” Afsaneh says in surprise. And then her face turns into a question, and Pippa laughs.

“Yes, I kept the name,” she confirms. “Less confusing. And you, Captain?”

Afsaneh sets her jaw a little. “Paris. Yes, I did too.”

They can just fit into the space, the both of them, not touching, if they hug their knees to their chests. “I didn’t know you were aboard.”

“Sure you did,” Afsaneh says. “It would have been on one of those five million PADDs that would have come across your desk. When you didn’t say anything, I figured you were buried in work.”

This nebula is expansive and beautiful - really a beginning. Pippa keeps trying to imagine colors, but she also keeps finding them in the sight in front of her.

“That’s never stopped you from getting my attention before.”

“Maybe you needed to put your attention there. I know I did, after.”

Pippa’s heard some about Afsaneh’s divorce. They’ve only seen each other briefly once since it happened. Where her divorce had been amicable and organic, Afsaneh’s had been hard. The worst part was the kids. Pippa feels a little guilty about not having seen them since. She always seems to be halfway across the quadrant. “I think I just needed to keep going. I don’t really know what that means, but it meant paperwork a few hours ago, and now it means looking at this.”

“I kind of hoped you’d end up here,” Afsaneh says. “I wasn’t going to wait, you know, but you’ve always made space seem a little bit more... _ vibrant _ .”

Pippa leans in just a little, lets their shoulders touch. “I’m on break now. I can make sure you get assigned to quarters that have the best view for your three-day trip.”

“Do I need it?”

“The view? I don’t know, but I do like it.”

Afsaneh sighs and leans back a little. “No. I mean, another wall between us. Do we really need that, when we’re both here, right now?”

One of their first conversations with each other had happened just like this, under the infinity of space.

Pippa takes her time, lets her hand fit to the curve of Afsaneh’s jaw. There are no boundaries to navigate and right now, no one else. “No,” she whispers, and she pulls her in.

It’s not their first kiss  _ at all _ , but it’s a first. They’re different but still  _ them _ . She savors Afsaneh’s mouth, the warmth of her breath, the soft press of her nose.

When she pulls away, there is nothing but promise between them. Beginning. She stays close enough for their foreheads to touch. “But I’m glad you asked. Stay with me.” She could mean for the next three days. Or not. Either way, they’re not too interested in clarifying.

“Yeah?” Afsaneh murmurs, and it sounds so  _ good _ that Pippa has to capture her lips again, just for a moment. “You’re sure?”

Pippa smiles. “It’s fine.” It’s Afsaneh’s turn to steal a quick kiss, and Pippa’s somehow never managed to remember how good it feels to have that perfect mouth on hers. “In fact, I insist.”


End file.
